Happy People

"I just don't think that Brooke could've done this. Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands, they just don't."

-Elle in Legally Blond 

This line makes me giggle like a school girl each and every time I hear or read it. Not because murder is any laughing matter, but because her hilarious line of thought is actually logic, assuming that happy people don't shoot their husbands.


And because I think that it's true. I'm not a doctor. I've never looked into this to find out if it's true. And I barely remember a thing from the biology class I took years ago. But I do know that exercise makes me happy. After a few silly setbacks that have stopped me from exercising the past few months, I joined a gym and started running again. And it's wonderful. It makes me happy. 

Letters to the Editor

According to Wikipedia, which we all know is a credible, academic source, letters to the editor have been around for several hundred years. When someone was annoyed with something in the community, city or country, they wrote a letter, hoping like a little child at Christmas for a special new toy, that it would be printed for all the world to see. And the "world" back then was probably a hundred people who lived all within walking distance. OK, so I have no idea how many people would read them, but it's unlikely that many considering transportation and literacy rates in the 1700s. Nonetheless, opinions were aired for public consumption, reaction, ridicule and appreciation. 


For those who could read.


For the vast majority of folks, reading was unattainable or useless. Perhaps they took their comments, questions, praises and frustrations to the town meeting? I imagine this scene playing out in my head like an episode of the Gilmore Girls: There would need to be a Loralia sneaking in food, a Luke complaining and grouchy all the time, a weird man named Kirk who did all kinds of odd jobs and someone holding the gavel behind the podium who always referenced an irrelevant rule book. Yes, I'm sure that's what it looked like. Exactly.


Fast-forward several hundred years. We live in 2010. We text, tweet and type our thoughts, questions and comments. The art of writing a letter by hand will soon be in the Smithsonian as something people did way back when. Phone calls are a chore and commonly made while on the way to someplace else or while doing something else. When there's a complaint, comment, question or praise wanting to make it's public debut, there is no formal letter composed to the institution we know as the newspaper and rarely does the whole community gather together at a town meeting on a regular basis.


Does that mean that our thoughts, questions and comments are muted? Um...not exactly.


Instead, we text, Tweet, Facebook and blog. We publish our thoughts for all the world to see on the world wide web. One click from a computer or text message from a phone and instantly and thought, question or comment is published to the masses. In some cases, it reaches more people in more places than any newspaper dreamed their circulation would or could reach. They can promote and enhance a career in minutes...or destroy a reputation in seconds. 


So I started to wonder...is writing a letter to the editor a lost art? Has the length of this section been cut? Are the letters we read the only ones even submitted? Has the demographic of the author changed from perhaps the passionate, active and involved person who is starting out or in the height of his or her career to that of the person who typically takes time for the hand-held morning paper in the year 2010?

Career Idea No. 42

Most weeks I come up with a new plan for what I want to do with my life. Now before you go thinking that I'm going to quit my job and return for another masters degree, realize that most of these fall under the category of becoming a host of a television show at the Travel Channel. I'm not quite sure what this program would look like, but once the proposal is finalized, I'm sure that they'll take me up on my offer to adventure around the planet on their dime and talking about it to a camera for you to see at home. Yup, I'm sure of that.

One of the other ideas that has me thinking, "hmmmm...that'd be fun" would be to sell greeting cards. It's not so much of a career idea but more a pipe dream of making pocket change to support my travel habit until cable television realizes what it's missing. So...this afternoon, I opened my craft closets, took down several large plastic bins filled with paper, stickers, glue sticks, magazine clippings and scissors and got to work. Here are today's creations.

Hi, my name is Heather...

It's been almost three months since I last blogged. Weird. That's the longest stretch since I stared this thing several years back. I'd like to say that it's been because my life's been so busy that I haven't had the chance to sit down and write a thing. I'd like to say that I've been going through something big that's made me keep everything inside a secret on purpose and now there's some big "reveal" for me to post. I'd like to say something that sounds better than the truth...I just haven't blogged.

I've been in Atlanta for almost seven months and my apartment for almost six. I've been back to Austin several times, I went up to DC for a family event and I went home to Chicago for a few days. I broke my toe. I explored Greeneville and Asheville, catching up with old friends. I went to summer camp. I played Frisbee. I ate ice cream.

It's been a summer. Summers for me have historically been filled with more adventures, but perhaps this moving-to-Atlanta thing is just one big adventure in itself. It's a different kind of adventure, that's for sure. Sometimes it's one that I love filled with all kinds of new exciting things. Sometimes it's one that still feels like a pair of beautiful shoes that you just can't make fit on your feet, even though they're the right size and on sale at DSW, where you have a coupon that expires that day. It's good, just different than I've experienced before. And different isn't good or bad. It's just different.

As I sit here and tell myself that I'm going to get to the gym each and every day (joined this week!), I'm also telling myself that I'm going to blog more. I miss writing. I miss words. I miss crafting what seems like the perfect sentence at the perfect moment. So hopefully, I'll be back. More often. Right here.

Hi, my name is Heather...it's nice to meet you...again.